


(Not So) Wonderland

by kitkatt0430



Series: Work In Progress Bingo [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland Fusion, Cisco fell through the mirror trying to rescue his brother, Hartley runs the Hatter's Tea Shop, Inspired by SyFy's Alice miniseries, M/M, drugs and addiction, the resistance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: Wonderland hasn't exactly been wonderful since the Heart Family seized the throne and began controlling the populace with Tea, a line of artificial emotions with highly addictive qualities.  This is the world Hartley's grown up in and he'd give anything to help change it.Cisco always thought Wonderland was just a child's story, until his brother is kidnapped by men bearing the mark of the white rabbit and Cisco falls through a mirror himself trying to follow after them.  But this place is no fairy tale and it looks like getting Dante back will be no easy feat.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Hartley Rathaway
Series: Work In Progress Bingo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977097
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	(Not So) Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally meant for Hartmonfest earlier this year, but I stalled on it. Chapter one is finally ready and is getting kicked out of the WIP folder on my computer.
> 
> Inspired by the Alice Syfy miniseries.

The first time Hartley has a drop of 'tea', it's labeled Excitement. It's only the tiniest of drops, barely even enough to be considered a full dose, and he feels like the world goes mad.

The earth drops away from beneath his feet and he's swept along the most terrifying roller coaster he can imagine. And in Wonderland, metaphors become reality if you aren't careful. So Hartley's never sure, afterwards, if his body had gone on the same trip his brain went on. If the floor really did fall away and his body lifted up in the air to twirl around in circles and drops that gave him vertigo so bad that he threw up once or twice before the Excitement faded from his system.

But when it was over, Hartley's only moved as far as the bathroom and he's pretty sure his roommate's the one who got him there in time to hurl.

There's a reason why the first time Hartley has 'tea' he resolves it'll be his last as well. His roommate, though. Axel... Axel's in the hospital for addiction to Excitement and a few other teas as well.

Unfortunately, that drop of Excitement was not the last drop of tea Hartley ever has. And every time he takes a dose, part of him worries it'll be the one that leads him down the path to becoming Axel's roommate again. Just another addict in the hospital, getting experimental treatments in hopes that maybe they'll find an antidote to combat the effects of cumulative 'tea' drinking.

So he wasn't exactly thrilled when the Resistance asks him to open a Tea Shop.

* * *

It's said that the inhabitants of Wonderland once came from Earth. If that's true, it happened long ago, perhaps in a time when the barriers between the worlds was thinner. People falling through puddles on Earth into the sky of Wonderland, unable to return. But that time was long past and if it were true, there isn't a single history left in the world that still records it.

These days the barriers are nigh impenetrable. The last accidental visitor a girl named Alice, who'd fallen through several hundred years earlier. In fact, the girl had visited twice, barely managing to return to her world each time. If she'd come through a third time, there's no doubt she'd have been stuck for sure.

Three was a magical number, after all.

* * *

Hartley's Tea Shop was called Hatters and it did just enough business to stay afloat. He bought more tea than he sold, prices just high enough that he could manage and the excess, well...

His supplier thought Hartley was an addict, no doubt. Or had a loved one who was an addict. Not entirely untrue, considering his former roommate's current fate. There'd been something between them once, but the tea had ensured it went nowhere. Hartley hadn't been in love with Axel but he'd cared for the other man. Cared enough to get Axel help when he was litterally sitting upside down on the ceiling and shrieking with laughter that sounded painful to hear.

Axel was still on the ceiling, but now all he did was cry. Hartley hadn't been to visit him in months and he felt guilty every time he thought about it.

But none of Hartley's tea went to Axel. It did, however, go to the Resistance. It was analyzed there by scientists, all searching for safe antidotes and hoping to find the source of the tea. It was currently the Red Queen's favored method of keeping the masses in line.

Small doses were also Hartley's way of paying informants, though he wondered how many of them would eventually wind up in the hospital... assuming anyone cared enough to check them in. He'd tell himself they'd get the tea elsewhere if not from him and at least he gave them proper warnings on dosages and reminders not to mix teas together. And when an informant stopped showing up, he'd look for them to be sure...

Hartley really hated that Tea Shop.

In fact, Hartley was seriously considering burning down the entire street's worth of Tea Shops when one of his informants came in, dragging a very wet and bedraggled young man along with him. "Hatter! Hatter!"

Hartley rolled his eyes. He'd long since given up trying to convince Jean that his store's name wasn't also his name. "What is it?" he asked, eyes flicking over to the bedraggled man Jean had brought indoors.

Cute, likely cleaned up nicely when dry... but probably newly on the streets after wasting all his money on tea. He wouldn't be the first person to fall off a pier while lost in the throws of a tea high. He was just lucky someone fished him out again.

"He's an Alice," Jean said, excitement - genuine excitement, not the artificial stuff - lighting up his eyes.

"He keeps calling me that," the drenched man complained, sounding confused.

"Because you're an Alice," Jean insisted.

"My name is Cisco. Cisco Ramon. Certainly not Alice," the man - Cisco - insisted in irritation.

"Alice isn't just a name here," Hartley said quietly, pulse thrumming because it couldn't be possible... could it? "Alice is slang for someone from Earth. Because the last time Wonderland had a visitor from Earth, her name was Alice."

"Wonderland," Cisco responded flatly. "Like the book? The children's book?"

"Does this place seem like a child's fairy tale to you?" Hartley asked sharply and Ramon subsided with a shake of his head, though he muttered something too low for Hartley to understand.

"How much is an Alice worth?" Jean asked and Cisco immediately became offended, but Hartley ignored him for the moment to peruse the teas he had for sale.

None of the latest and greatest new fads had yet to grace Hartley's store. But he had plenty of Excitement, Serenity, Joy, Lust... and after a moments hesitation, Hartley packaged up some Serenity. It was the most benign of the teas; many people high on Serenity could still function fairly normally and it was the least dangerous to overdose on. He handed it off to Jean who accepted it gleefully.

Hartley gave the usual warnings and his typical plea that Jean sell at least some of that so he could afford to eat that week. And, as usual, Jean nodded along eagerly and left as soon as was polite.

"What did you just give him?" Cisco asked.

"Artificial emotions. Called tea for short. No idea how that name came about, mostly 'cause I don't care. You really aren't from Wonderland, are you? Everyone knows what tea is around here."

Cisco shook his head. "I... I fell through a mirror trying to catch the men who kidnapped my brother. He's here somewhere too."

An Alice in Wonderland. It was too much to hope he'd bring down the whole house of cards, but Hartley couldn't help himself. Hope flickered to life in his chest anyway.

* * *

Cisco wasn't having the greatest week.

The present he'd ordered for Dante's birthday never arrived and the shop was refusing to refund the purchase. HIs backup present was a piano themed comfy mat for the kitchen which arrived the day before... and had the wrong graphic on it, so Cisco had to send that back in exchange for the correct image and wrap up an IOU for his brother instead. Dante found the whole story hilarious, thankfully, and joked about accepting gift cards, much to their mother's dismay.

("Gift cards take no thought. A birthday gift should be meaningful." To be honest, she had a point, which is why Cisco had wrapped up the IOU instead of getting a last minute Nintendo gift card in the first place.)

On top of all that, Cisco's thesis advisor was going on an extended leave of absence due to a family emergency. Which meant Cisco was now going to have to locate a new advisor and hope that this didn't turn into a massive setback when he was finally at the halfway point to his PhD.

It was not a good time for some Lucius Malfoy cosplayer to drag Dante into a back alley and Cisco probably should've called the police. But in a situation where the hispanic guy is the victim and the kidnapper is a white guy? Cisco's faith in the cops wasn't exactly high.

So he'd run into the alleyway after them. It was a dead end and Dante was fighting his captors - a second cosplayer had shown up, a stylized rabbit on the back of his jacket of all things - but he suddenly went limp... right as they dragged him into a giant mirror set up at dead end.

Cisco had slowed to a walk and, understandably freaked out, touched the mirror. And then screamed when it dragged him through.

The other side of the mirror was not a perfect reflection of the alley from which Cisco had come. But he caught sight of his brother being dragged off ahead, so Cisco kept going.

He lost track of time. There was this blank spot. One moment he was running after his brother's captors and the next he was standing in a room with padded walls and a table in the center with a small bottle labeled 'drink me'. The door behind him slammed shut. Blank spot and then he's freaking out as the walls literally closed in on him. Blank again and then he's picking the lock with the bobby pins he kept on hand to pin back his hair when doing delicate work.

The lock clicked and the floor fell out from beneath him and the world blanks out again, just long enough to cover his fall but then he's splashing into the water and, thankfully, he stops blanking out. Cisco's able to swim to a nearby pier and pull himself out of the water. But he's soaked and exhausted and his phone is officially dead.

Lost and absolutely certain he must have been drugged in that alleyway, Cisco reluctantly asked the first person he ran in to for help. He's in a part of Central he doesn't recognize and he needs to get help before whoever took his brother gets any further.

Unfortunately, it seems the guy he asked for help is a drug addict who brought Cisco to see his dealer. But Cisco's never heard of 'tea' as a euphemism for drugs before, never heard of the name Alice being used as slang for anything, and he's starting to be extremely worried that... he might actually really be in Wonderland.

Hatter - or whatever his name is; Hatter would do for now - flips the sign on his tea shop from open to closed and then gives Cisco a long stare. "Come on, you need to change into something dry and it looks like you had the great misfortune of taking a dip in the lake. You'll probably want to wash your hair too. My flat is above the shop and think my things will fit you. If not, they'll make due until your stuff has been washed and dried."

Cisco shook his head. "I just... I just need to call the cops. This isn't... this can't be happening. Wonderland isn't real."

Walking back up to Cisco, Hatter pinched his arm. Hard. When Cisco shouted in pain, the man asked, dryly, "feels real enough. And the police from your world can't do shit here. You could go to the authorities here in Wonderland, but they're the ones pushing Tea so hard," and Cisco thinks he can hear the capitalization now, "that it went from a harmless party drug to something over three-fourths of the population are addicted to, so I don't think they're going to care about some Alice showing up on their doorstep... assuming they don't just dismiss you as someone high on Day Dreams or Euphoria."

"Why aren't you dismissing me as just another addict?" Cisco finally asked.

"I nearly did," Hartley admitted after a moment. "I guess you just don't seem like you're lying. Now. Clean clothes and a warm shower or are you going to walk out that door and get yourself lost?"

"I'm already lost," Cisco muttered, but he followed Hatter upstairs this time.

"So, Cisco Ramon. I'm Hartley Rathaway. But my patrons think its funny to call me Hatter. Most probably don't even remember my real name at this point." Hatter - Rathaway - paused a beat. "You can call me Hartley, if you like."

Cisco just nodded and let Hartley point him at the shower. Once clean and dressed in dry clothing - sweat pants and a shirt - while his own clothing was in the wash, Cisco found Hartley arguing on a... it was a phone, but no design Cisco had ever seen before.

He slammed the receiver down, hard, and Cisco was surprised it didn't crack under the force.

"Everything okay?" Cisco asked tentatively.

"No. I run the Tea Shop to..." Hartley stared blankly at Cisco for a long moment. "I run it to funnel resources to the Resistance. When I was five, the heir to the deposed Queen of Hearts came back from exile. She had an army recruited from the Wastes and she declared herself the rightful ruler of Wonderland. There was a war and the princess, now known as the Red Queen, won. In part because of the rising fad of Tea rendering a small, but not insignificant, portion of the Wonderland Knights insensible. The House of Spades, which had taken over as the ruling family during the brief time of the Exile of the Hearts, was completely killed off.

"There are rumors, of course, that the Prince of Spades, merely a baby, survived to one day reclaim his throne from the usurper princess. But which family is the rightful ruler and which is the usurper is all about your point of view. And a moot point anyway, as it's all just wishful thinking. The Prince died with his family and most of the populace is addicted to some kind of Tea or other.

"I just tried to talk to the Resistance about you, but because I run a Tea Shop I clearly must be high. There are no Alices in Wonderland and I should peel myself off the ceiling." Hartley ran his hands through his hair. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to help you track down your brother and even if I did... I don't know of any way to send you back. Alice Liddell managed to come here and back over a century ago, but..."

"You've been helpful so far. Um... the people who took my brother. Two white guys with long white hair in white suits, stylized image of a rabbit on the back of their jackets. That description mean anything to you?" Cisco sat down on Hartley's couch.

"Yeah, unfortunately. They're called the White Rabbits and they run enforcement on the Tea factories and deliveries. I... I really don't know what they'd be doing on your world." Hartley shook his head, bewildered. "How'd you fall into the lake?"

"I'm not... sure. My memories after going through the mirror are kind of... fractured. A lot of blank spots," Cisco admitted. "I was chasing after them and I think... I got lost or they lured me into a room. Some bottle labeled drink me was in there, but I swear I didn't. The walls closed in after the door shut behind me and then... I was in a box, up high. Picked the lock and dropped straight into the water below. Lucky me there was water below or I'd have gone splat on the pavement. And that was when the blackouts stopped, so I was able to get out of the water."

"And met Jean shortly thereafter," Hartley filled in. "It's said time runs a little differently in Wonderland than on your world. It's possible that the blackouts were a side-effect of you adjusting to our world. But it could also be that they had some kind of aerosoled Tea that the Rabbits are inoculated against."

"Lovely," Cisco drawled. "I really don't know which answer I'd prefer."

Hesitantly, Hartley said, "we could check out the old Clock Tower. It's where the connection between our two worlds used to be studied. Abandoned now, but there might still be something useful there. It's off limits to the public, though. So we'd need to wait for nightfall to sneak inside."

"You don't have to..."

"You don't know Wonderland and you'd get lost halfway to the tower. And I am sick of doing nothing but selling Tea. Cisco, please, let me help you." There was something genuinely earnest in the other man's voice and a deep seated frustration written on his face.

"Okay. Thank you. We'll go tonight." Cisco paused a beat, realizing he had no idea what time it was. "So, um... how long until nightfall, exactly?"


End file.
